New material and stuff

It's been a good couple nights for the creative juices. Last night I was back in a small rehearsal room to start learning two tracks by Michelle Bessant. Michelle was the songwriter in a band called Siskin I played in years ago, and she's written two excellent political songs that really set the mood for living in a financially struggling United Kingdom in 2011. She approached me about drumming on them a few weeks back, and having introduced her to producer Rob Toulson, the actual recording of them should take place very soon. Rehearsals were good fun - I'm not normally a hip-hop drummer but there was a real element of it there, and, under my recommendation, we had Gav Sirisena on bass. I recommended him because he's an awesome musician, and he was really on it last night, some proper funky stuff going down and with the tracks now learnt I'm looking forward to getting them recorded and eventually out there.

Tonight I was back at my regular haunt of CB2 restaurant in Cambridge to have a chat with 2 actors - Kev and Izzy, about my ideas, and also run through the new script. It was perfect actually - they're both up for being in my filmed series of plays (yes, I know we were told previously that theatre doesn't work on film, but we have ways and ideas and it bloody well will) which will be four plays I wrote a long time ago - 'Bed', 'Sugar Sugar', 'Crackerjoke Writer' and 'Drop Me With Dignity'. Looking back at the scripts a couple nights ago I've realised 'Bed' is still probably the best thing I've ever written, very annoying considering I wrote it in 2006. We did Brighton Fringe with it back then (four star review) and it's since been selling well in Canada, but it'll be nice to produce it ourselves again. With all the four plays, Kevin Wright will take the lead role - all of them are 'awkward young man' - it'll look like a series even if the situations are very different, ala Hancock's Half Hour.

We then had a full run-through of my new script, 'Is It Too Late To Save Oscar Pike?' - which I've been moaning a lot about recently. It works though, big style, I'm pleased to report, and considering the last time I tried out new non-Christmas material at CB2 late last year all four plays I had just written didn't work at all, I'm really happy with this. The tempo seems nice, the lack of happy ending but still satisfying conclusion works, all this deliberating seems to have paid off. Hurrah! Izzy really suited the role of 'Maddy', which was a lovely thing because I've known Izzy Nicolson for a while and really like her acting - but she's never been in one of my plays before and you never know if it's going to be a good fit or not, but it bounced along perfectly and we're all very happy with it. One slight problem though - the play itself is obviously about a guy about to turn 30, and even the performance date we've got booked for Cambridge is two weeks before my 30th. The script was a chance for me to get some things off my chest, and I'm very happy I did do - but I did write it with me in mind to play the lead role, and knowing my limitations as an actor, kind of like on-stage therapy, wrapped in a 50-minute comedy. Everyone seems okay with me taking the role, apart from me - fuck it's wordy, I'll never learn it! Why do I write such complex dialogue? Yet the general consensus is that the dialogue needs to be that way to drive the story along. I've got a couple days I think to work out if I can learn this and do it myself, or hand it over to a real actor...either way, Paul Richards - playwright, is happy enough tonight.

And my other happy thing of the week is the tour with Aidy (and Dave the bassist) in on. Leave has been booked, ideas exchanged, and we'll tour as an acoustic trio in early July (starting on the 4th, to be precise). One gig booked so far - that's for the Wednesday and that's in Leeds, but with Watford, Lincoln and somewhere in Devon also close to being confirmed it's starting to look like a proper tour, need a few more dates yet but we're all very excited.

Currently listenig to: Chris Difford - Cashmere If You Can (best album of the year so far, and lovely to meet him at a gig at the weekend - it's a great release - proper wordy pop, with some genuine touching moments)